The Juvenile Keepsake,

12mo, pp. [iv], 212; illustrated with an engraved frontispiece, an engraved vignette on title, and four other engraved plates, all neatly coloured by a contemporary hand; bound in the original blue publisher's cloth, spine lettered and decorated in gilt, lightly rubbed, but still a very appealing copy, with a lengthy contemporary inscription ('another little book that afforded pleasure to our dear Jessie ...') to recto of frontispiece.

Rare first edition of this ^gJuvenile Keepsake^g, comprising stories collected from various contemporary author's, such as Barbara Hofland ('The Boy's Treaty' and 'The School Boys') and Geraldine Jewsbury ('Station in Life: or the young gleaner and his cousin'). Predominantly aimed at young boys, the tales, besides those already mentioned, include 'Henry Howard; or the Heedless Boy'; 'A Naval Hero' (on Lord Nelson); and 'Mischief its own punishment; or the Gunpowder Plot', as well as two set in America ('Business First: Play afterwards' and 'More Fear than Danger. An American Tale').

Barbara Hofland (1770-1844) was the daughter of a Sheffield manufacturer named Wreaks; she was raised by a maiden aunt before marrying her first husband, T. Bradshawe Hoole, a merchant, who died of consumption leaving her with an infant son, Frederick Hoole. Already a published writer, she turned to her pen for their survival publishing a volume of poems which attracted over 2,000 subscribers - which enabled her to open a boarding-school at Harrogate. She met the landscape painter Thomas Hofland and they married in 1810. They settled in London and Barbara began writing novels, including a series of works representing the moral virtues: Integrity, Patience, Self-Denial, Humility, Energy, Fortitude, and Decision. Her husband remained a mediocre artist, much involved in the British Institution, and a philanderer who fathered an illegitimate son in 1816, whom Barbara uncomplainingly took in and brought up. Despite her troubles, Mrs Hofland produced a stream of novels, an estimated sixty in her lifetime. Miss Milford, her friend and fellow novelist, described her as being as; 'independent as a skylark'.